Iraq Warned It's Running Out Of Time

2 U.n. Officials Making 'Last-ditch' Effort For Cooperation On Inspections

January 19, 2003|By ESTHER SCHRADER Special to the Daily Press

WASHINGTON — Against a backdrop of intensified weapons inspections and growing U.S. impatience with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, top U.N. officials warned Iraq on Saturday that it was running out of time to cooperate with inspectors and avoid war.

The warning came from senior inspector Hans Blix as he and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, traveled to Baghdad, Iraq's capital, to push for more help from the Iraqi regime.

Blix and ElBaradei's visit to Baghdad occurs days before they're scheduled to give their first report to the U.N. Security Council on Iraq's cooperation since the hunt for weapons resumed in November, after a four-year hiatus.

In an interview with CNN in Cyprus, ElBaradei said he and Blix would be "making a last-ditch effort" to persuade Iraq "to give us what we need" before Jan. 27, when their report was due.

"Iraq has not cooperated sufficiently with the United Nations weapons inspectors, and we will impress the seriousness of the situation to them," Blix told reporters in Cyprus. "The world would like to be assured that Iraq is rid of weapons of mass destruction. Until we, the inspectors, have been convinced of that, we cannot so report to the Security Council."

America's top general said Saturday that there was still time for Iraq to provide information and avoid an attack.

"Certainly, there has been no decision on the U.S. part for conflict in Iraq," Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Italy, where he stopped on his way to talks with officials in the Turkish capital, Ankara. The United States has been seeking permission from Turkey to send thousands of U.S. troops through its territory in the event of a war with Iraq.

On CBS on Saturday, Blix said the United Nations had determined that 11 warheads found by inspectors Thursday in an Iraqi warehouse didn't contain chemicals. He said that "these were intended to be filled but had not been filled and had been there since the end of the '90s. ... They should have been declared, and we will have to destroy them."

In Iraq, U.N. inspection teams visited at least five locations Saturday, including Trade Ministry food warehouses in central Baghdad. The teams examined at least two refrigerated trucks and a trailer, which the site manager said were mobile food-testing labs.

Such labs are of particular interest because a U.S. intelligence report read that an Iraqi document indicated Baghdad "was interested in developing mobile fermentation units" for biological weapons. The mobility of the labs is thought to make them difficult to detect.

ElBaradei said Saturday that documents found Thursday at the home of an Iraqi scientist appeared to outline high-tech attempts to enrich uranium in the 1980s. Enriched uranium can be used to build nuclear bombs.

But ElBaradei said the more important issue appeared to be whether Iraq included the information found in the documents in a 12,000-page declaration that it submitted to the United Nations last month. The U.N. resolution authorizing the current inspections said any Iraqi omission could be considered a "material breach" by Iraq.

The documents were found by U.N. inspectors as they paid their first unannounced calls on private homes in Iraq, as their inspections grow increasingly aggressive.

Blix told CBS on Saturday that inspections had "accelerated very much" since they began seven weeks ago. There are now more than 100 inspectors and support staff operating in Iraq, he said. Using eight helicopters, they have visited "about 100" sites, "and we are fanning out all over the country in the future."

Esther Schrader is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.